Probably should have said Lamentations 1 because I want to start my preaching with reading of Lamentations 1, the first four verses. How lonely sits the city that was full of people. And Jeremiah's writing about the city of Jerusalem, the city of God. How like a widow is she who was great among the nations. The princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. Judah has gone into captivity under affliction and hard servitude. She dwells among the nations, she finds no rest. All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits. The roads to Zion mourn because no one comes to the set feasts. All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Well, let's look to God and ask for his help as we come to the preaching of his word this morning. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word and ask that you would teach us from your word this morning. We think of the apostles' words to Jesus. Lord, teach us how to pray, and we ask that you would do that this day by the same spirit who taught the apostles how to pray through Jesus' words. Teach us through your word here in Lamentations chapter three this morning, for we ask this all in your Son's name, amen. Well, the historical setting of Lamentations chapter three, we could say is found in the passage that we read for our a reading from the Old Testament this morning, Leviticus chapter 26, and then also the beginning part of Lamentations chapter one. God had warned his people Israel way back in the days of Moses, we read it from Leviticus 26, that the very thing that happened in the days of Jeremiah would happen if they did not obey him. Jeremiah records in his prophecy, the book of Jeremiah, the days leading up to the captivity of Israel and even the beginning days of it. And here we have the account of some of what goes on, and especially what went on in the city while the devastation was occurring, while the temple was being destroyed, and the days leading up to that, and what happened with the city when it was destroyed and the walls broken down. And lamentation is really Jeremiah's lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple of God. And as I said, our attention today is going to be focused on chapter three, but I wanted you to be reminded of that background, that if the people did not worship God, if they broke their covenant with him by worshiping other gods, which they did, And if they did not keep his commandments, which they did not, then this is what would happen. So it should have been no surprise to anyone. And in chapter three of Lamentations, Jeremiah doesn't focus so much on the big picture, although he does to a degree, but he especially is focusing on his own situation and his own state of mind and heart. and his own pain and sorrow. Jeremiah was part of the believing remnant of the people of God. He had been obeying God. In fact, reading through Jeremiah, you realize that Jeremiah was actually suffering persecution because he was obeying God. But even though he was different from the majority of the Israelites, or the people of Judah and Jerusalem, he was still part of the sinful nation of Israel. And his words reflect that, that he identified himself with them, the people of God. And so as part of the people of God and the people of Israel, he suffered along with them. He suffered with them because it was his people His city, His God, whose name was being blasphemed by the enemy, as well as by His own people to a large degree. And He suffered along with them just because He was physically there with them. Even if He were simply an objective news reporter or something like that in those days, being in the city of Jerusalem, He would have suffered. And so this morning what I want us to consider from this chapter, Lamentations chapter three, is how to pray in times of distress. Or also how to pray, and I put in brackets after that, and trust God in times of distress. Back in the early part of this year, when I was reading through the Old Testament, I put a little post-it note on this page of Lamentations 3, and every now and then I would look back to it because it was just sticking out a little bit outside the margin of my Bible, and recently I thought, I'm gonna preach on this text. That's what I had stated. I just put that sermon title there and I haven't changed it even from what it was on the little post-it note. How to Pray and Trust God in Times of Distress. This was a time of distress for the Jewish people and this was a time of distress for the godly prophet Jeremiah and for all the believing remnant. And many of us in this congregation are going through times of distress. In fact, probably almost every Sunday out of the 52 of the year, if I stood up and said that, I would be uttering truth. But it is certainly true. Of us in our congregation, many of us are going through times of distress, whether it's physical distress or emotional distress or spiritual stress on one level or another. So what I'd like us to do is simply glean some lessons, some principles for prayer, that we can learn from Jeremiah's words and from Jeremiah's prayers to God for times such as this, if you are going through a time of distress. If you're not, lay these things up in your mind. As God's people, you probably won't have to wait long. Through much tribulation, Paul said that we must enter the kingdom of God. And the first principle, or the first lesson for us, looking at Jeremiah's words in Lamentations chapter three, is that we should see and accept the hand of God. That's in verses one through 18, especially, and I also put down verse 28b. See and accept the hand of God. That's what Jeremiah did. There was great suffering going on. He tells about some of the things that he has seen, especially in chapter 2. Chapter 1 that went on in the city. In some ways we could call them unspeakable things. People starving to death. Women eating their own children and things like that. There was much sorrow, there was much pain, but it was the hand of God. And that's how Jeremiah saw it. He saw that it was the hand of God. He knew it was the hand of God because he knew God is sovereign over all the earth and whatever happens in the world happens because God planned that it should happen and he brought it to pass in time. He knew that. He recognized it. He ascribed it all to God, even the pain and sorrow of heart that he was enduring as part of the godly remnant and as one who was faithful to God. Look at the first four verses in Lamentations 3. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. He doesn't say this is what he's done to those disobedient Israelites here in Jerusalem. He says he's made me do this. Surely he has turned his hand against me time and time again throughout the day. He has aged my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. And then verses 10 to 12. He has been to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush. He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate. He has bent his bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. He saw what God was doing, he describes it here in very personal terms, and he ascribes this to God. It was the hand of God. 28b that I mentioned a moment ago says, because God has laid it on him. Let him sit alone and keep silent. person who's suffering this way because God has laid it upon him. He saw the hand of God in all of this. 16 of the first 17 verses of Lamentations 3 explicitly ascribe what happens there to God. He has done this. Jeremiah is saying that Every day is a bad day lately. He's made me desolate. I may have had some hope in the early days, but the hope hasn't materialized. If I run from a bear and get around the corner and it looks like I'm safe, there's a lion facing me. Brethren, every time that you are afflicted, You should do what Jeremiah does. Ascribe what is happening in your life to God. I said ascribe. That's what Jeremiah is doing. He's not blaming God. He's not saying God is doing anything wrong. He's just saying this is what God is doing in my life today. If you will do that, if you will see that it's the hand of God and accept it as God's hand and God's will and decree for your life at this time, it will help you to always remember, and not only remember, but to keep at the forefront of your mind that God is not absent while you are suffering. He is not sleeping. He is not unaware, He is not uninterested in what you are going through, but He is in fact doing it. He is making all things work together for good for you who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose. You need to see that. And then as I said, you need to accept it. And Jeremiah did accept it. He accepted what God was doing. He humbly bowed and he agreed that it was right for God to do what he was doing. As I said, he was not blaming God at all. Think of Jesus in Gethsemane. Was Jesus jumping for joy? that he was headed to the cross and as he was facing the harsh reality of the cross that he was going to be hanged on in just some hours there in Gethsemane, he pled with God that he could avoid that if it were possible. But he accepted it, didn't he? How did he conclude his prayer each time? Yet not my will, but your will be done. He accepted what God was doing. He embraced the will of God. That's what Jeremiah did. And when we are suffering and when we are in agony even, we should see it and accept it as God's hand. And then we should acknowledge, we should not only see and accept, we should acknowledge and convey. You should acknowledge within yourself, first of all, your pain and your sorrow and the difficulty you're facing, the distress that you're in because of what God is doing, and then you should convey it to God. Convey to God the bitterness, of your soul. Jeremiah says he has surrounded me with bitterness and woe. He said about the city in chapter one in verse four that all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. So acknowledge that within yourself when this happens. In other words, not just that God has afflicted you, but also that you are suffering. And that's what Jeremiah is saying here. I'm suffering here. He doesn't differentiate himself from the rest of the people because he's a godly man. He says I'm suffering. Look at verses 19 and 20. Remember my affliction and roaming the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. Or look at verses 48 and 49. He says, my eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. My eyes flow and do not cease without interruption. He may not have engaged in all the sins. He certainly did not engage in the sins of idolatry the way that the vast portion of the population of Jerusalem did in those days. But he was in pain. Look at verses 54 through 56 as well. The waters flowed over my head. I said, I am cut off. I called on your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice. Do not hide your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help. I'm in distress, I'm crying for help, oh Lord. He acknowledges that he's suffering here. Reminds me of Ruth chapter one where Naomi says, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, bitter. for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. The Bible doesn't call us to be stoical when we're suffering as God's people. It doesn't tell us that when we're suffering, we should pretend that we're not, or try to convince ourselves that we're not, or even try to convince other people that we're not. It doesn't tell us that. It tells us to acknowledge within ourselves that we are suffering and then to convey that bitterness to God. And when I say bitterness, I'm using the word the way that Jeremiah uses it about himself. He has bitterness. He doesn't mean bitterness the way we usually use the word, a synonym for sinful anger. No, that's sin. What he's talking about here, the pain and the heartache that these trials have brought to him. The pain and the heartache that come from these chastisements that God is laying even upon his genuine people. They produce heartache and sorrow and pain. God chastises all his children, doesn't he? And when he does, it's not pleasant, the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12. And that's what Jeremiah is conveying here to God. So when I say convey it to God, what I wanna do is encourage you to do a couple things there. The first thing is to pour out your soul to God. That's what we see. him doing, conveying his suffering to God, conveying his sorrow to God. It says in Psalm 62 verse 8, trust in him at all times, that is trust in God, trust in him at all times you people, pour out your heart before him, God is a refuge for us. And so that's what Jeremiah is doing. He's pouring out his heart before God. He's not just saying, you know, I'm a sad man right now, woe is me. He's telling God about it. And that's what we should do. We should acknowledge our sorrow. We should convey that sorrow to God. We should pray to him. We should pour out our soul to him. Notice verse 41, the words of Jeremiah. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. Don't just cry and go around moping and mumbling, murmuring as the people did, the Israelites in the desert after they came out of Egypt. That was sin for them. Cry out to God, pour your heart out to God as it says. Let us lift our hearts and our hands to God in heaven. Or look at verse 48 and 49, I read them a moment ago, let me read them again. My eyes overflow with rivers of water, he's saying this to God, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. My eyes flow and do not cease without interruption. Verse 51, my eyes bring suffering to my soul because of all the daughters of my city. Tell God what is troubling you, whatever it might be, your physical affliction, your pain that you have because of that or your pain of heart because of what someone has said to you or done to you or what's going on in your life, your spiritual sorrows and trials, tell God about it. Hannah says to Eli in 1 Samuel 1.15, remember she was pouring out her soul to God, telling God that she wanted a child, she was barren. She didn't have any children. She wanted a child. So she said to the priest Eli, remember who had thought she was drunk because of the way that she was weeping and muttering there in the temple or the sanctuary, tabernacle, she says, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. That's what you should do. You should pour out your soul to God. And what I mean by that is a couple of things at least. One is that you tell him all that is on your heart. Tell God your complaint. That word is used in places like Psalm 142, verse two. I'll read Psalm 142, one and two. I cry out to the Lord with my voice, with my voice to the Lord, I make my supplication. I pour out my complaint before him. I declare before him my trouble. And you say, well, pastor, sometimes you preach about contentment and you say we shouldn't complain to God. That's right. But here it says in the Bible, I pour out my complaint to God. Is that wrong? No, it's not. Part of the problem is the way we use the word complaint. There's two different ways of using it. One is a bad complaining. One of the problems is in a Bible like mine, the New King James Version, all throughout the books of Moses, where it talks about the people of God murmuring, that was the King James word. That's kind of an old word. It's not a very flattering word. They changed it to complain. You can look that up in your lexicon. What's the word I'm looking for? Concordance, thank you, that's right. A Bible lexicon. They complained, it says, but it's a different Hebrew word. Murmur gets the idea across, but for the word I'm talking about where it's used like in complaint in Psalm 142, it's a different word. It's kind of like you could go to the store and make a complaint and you could do it in two different ways. They used to have complaints desk, now it would be the service desk. But you could do it in a loud, harsh, rough, and bitter way because you want to get across your anger to the person behind the desk. Or you could go and you could be Christian. You could be polite, informative, telling your problem. Maybe you could even be plaintive, mournful, I spent my several years savings so I could get this for my husband and look at it. That's not wrong. But to be murmuring and critical of God and His ways and His plans is wrong. But tell God your complaint in that righteous way, not murmuring. Tell Him. That's what the psalmist says he's going to do. That's what Jeremiah is doing here. He's saying, Lord, there are some things that are bad here. I want to tell you about them. I want to plead with you in light of them, that you would come and act, that you would come and bear your mighty right arm on behalf of your people. Speaking of that, that's the second thing I mean by pouring out your soul to God, telling him what is in your heart, and then bearing, B-A-R-E, all of your heart to him, all that is on your heart. I like this language of pouring out our soul to God. Look back at Lamentations 2, verse 19. Jeremiah uses this language. He says, and here he's speaking to the people, of Jerusalem, he says, arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward him for the life of your young children who faint from hunger at the head of every street. You're gonna tell God about your distress. You're gonna tell God about your sorrow of heart. Maybe you feel embarrassed. that you're so sorrowful. Usually I'm a joyful person. Why am I like this? I don't want anybody to know I'm like this. And you think it will do you well not even to let God know what's going on inside. No, Jeremiah says, pour out your heart like water. As if you have a glass and if you turn it over, everything is coming out. Not bitter complaining, that shouldn't come out. Not accusing God of things. No, but telling God everything that's on your heart. Pouring out your complaint, as the psalmist said. Empty the glass. That's the idea. Admit your pain. Look back at the earlier verses again of chapter three, verses 15 and following. He has filled me with bitterness. He has made me drink wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes. You have moved my soul far from peace. I have forgotten prosperity. He's telling God everything. Telling God everything about how he feels. Perhaps it's a time in your life when you go through hardship. Outwardly, our hardships probably never in this life will measure up to Jeremiah's in terms of the physical pain and suffering that he witnessed and that he endured. But God gives us the afflictions that he gives us because he knows us. He knows what's best for us. He knows what we need. He knows what each one of us needs to get on our knees. Make us get on our knees. Make us cry out to Him the way we should. And we need to admit the pain. Maybe it's time in your life to cry like a baby. I'm not giving instructions for the corporate prayer meetings on Wednesday evenings or other times that we have them. Sometimes when I pray publicly, I might feel like crying from a baby. I actually ask God to help me not. but I don't act that way when I'm at home. I pour out my soul to God. I pour out my soul in the pulpit in terms of what I want to say, but I think it's more fitting for us to do whatever you need to do to express your sorrow before God, your pain of heart in the secret place, or with people with whom it's fitting for you to do that, But this is how we should deal with God, brethren, when we are going through afflictions. Pour out our hearts. Empty the glass. Admit the pain. Be earnest and urgent. I think I read these verses before already, but let me do it again. He says in verses 54 and following, the waters flowed over my head. I said I am cut off. Call down your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice. Do not hide your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help. Don't say that to God with anger, but say it with earnestness and urgency. Perhaps this is where that message about the spirits interceding for us in Romans 8. 26 should come in. I'll confess, since I preached on that passage, I've been content to allow myself to groan a lot more in my praying without worrying about words when I can't think of what I should be saying to God. Says, the Spirit also helps in our weakness. He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Lord, I don't know what to say, but I don't want to stop praying at the moment. Oh, Lord. Pour out your soul to God. Tell him what is on your heart. Bear all your heart to him. And then the next thing is, under this heading of conveying to God, pour out your soul first of all. Second, I'm gonna use another word that can have different meanings, but I'll explain it, because I think it's a good word to use. Argue with God. Argue with Him. You think of argument meaning tell him what he has done that's wrong. That is not what I mean. I mean argue like a lawyer. Make your case. Argue like a lawyer, not like a contentious wife, Proverbs 21. What I mean is giving excellent, righteous, and logical reasons to God for why he should hear you and answer you and help you and deliver you from your pit, not telling him that he's wrong, all right? That's not the kind of argument I mean. A husband may be wrong. God never is wrong. You can pour out your soul and tell him how much it's troubling you, what he's doing, but not with a sinful complaint, murmuring, and not arguing that God is doing something wrong. But you may argue with him in the sense of laying out your case. And just another side note, even though I said your husband may be wrong, Still, don't be contentious. You may argue with him and try to prove him wrong, but do it in a gracious way and submit at the end of the day. But with God, lay out your case. Don't lecture him, don't dictate to him. Look at verses 55 to 59. Jeremiah says, I called on your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice. Do not hide your ear from my sign, from my cry for help. You drew near on the day I called on you and said, do not fear. He said, I heard that before from you. I want to hear it again. Do it again. And now verses 58 and 59. Oh Lord, you have pleaded the case for my soul. You have redeemed my life. Oh Lord, you have seen how I am wronged. Judge my case. Oh Lord. I won't say anything more about arguing with God because we're in Genesis 18, and I want to hear all that Pastor Carlson has to say about that, so I'm going to let him. But I could recap what we've seen so far in these first couple of points here about seeing and accepting the hand of God and acknowledging and conveying the bitterness of our soul to God. The third thing I have is hope in God. But just to recap what we've seen so far, you could say, I'm saying face your affliction for what it is with not denying the reality of it. That's not the biblical way to deal with it. Feel it, let yourself feel it. as opposed to trying to be a stoic in the sense of denying that you have pain or denying that this is a difficulty that you're experiencing. And then tell God, tell Him all of what you're experiencing. And then the third thing is hope in God, hope in God. And this is the big thing and the main thing, that all this is part of how we should pray in times of distress, hope in God. And what I mean there, and what I would include there especially, is holding on at every point as you go through your affliction and distress to the goodness of God. Like the psalmist said, I would have fainted unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And hold on to your confession of the goodness of God, that God is good every day you wake up. Every day you wake up, it may for a while get darker in your situation. It may get more painful. It may seem like it will never end. Hold on to the goodness of God. That's what it is to hope in God. Believe that God is still going to deliver you, believing that He still loves you. Reminds me of the preaching we had from Exodus 33 and Exodus 34, some years ago from Pastor Carlson. We had it renewed in our minds in the pastor's conference recently when he preached on that section. And he pointed out how it was a real low point for the people of God in the desert there, and a low point for Moses and Aaron because they were getting charged by the people of God with sin against them. And they were being threatened by the people of God there in the desert, the Israelites. But Moses then said, show me your glory. And what did God especially show him? He showed him his goodness. The goodness and the grace and the longsuffering and the kindness of God. Remember Pastor Lush's messages recently, the Sunday after the conference from Psalm 42 and Psalm 43. Hope in God, the psalmist says to himself, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. He didn't lose heart. He knew God was with him. He knew God was his God. We read in Romans 8, 24 and 25, for we were saved in this hope. But hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. You might be tempted to say when you're in a time of distress, how can I have hope? I don't see any reason for hope. Well, that's the time for hope. Because if you see it, it's not hope. Hope is something you're waiting for. Hope is something that is yet to come. It's focused on that. Look at Lamentations 3, verses 21 to 26. Really, the one part of Lamentations 3 that we all know. In the midst of his sorrow and pain, Jeremiah says, this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed. Someone could say, well, where's the mercy of God? He says, well, it's at least in this. We're still here, still looking at each other, still talking to each other. Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. You can find something every morning that is a mercy from God. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. If you are a Christian, God will never leave you and He will never forsake you. He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you. Make sure that you don't ever leave him or forsake him. We get tempted to do that when we go through severe trials, especially when they're prolonged. Don't do it. Determine that you won't do it. Go into the pain as you see it coming or begin to experience it, saying, I am not going to forsake God over this, whatever I do and whatever happens. Say with the Apostle Paul, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, Jesus Christ, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? For I am persuaded that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I quote those few statements from the, not the Hallelujah, but the No Condemnation Chorus in Romans 8 because I don't have time to re-preach it now. But think about those things, brethren. Remember those things. Remember that we have a great Savior and that the father who has not spared his son will give us every single thing in due time that Christ has died to procure for us. And then the fourth thing is to wait, to wait. We should accept, what is it, we should see and accept We should acknowledge and convey, we should hope in God, and then we should wait. Two of the verses I just read, verse 25 of Lamentations 3. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. If you were here, try to remember what you learned in the messages. I think it was a women's conference, maybe. And I think it was Pastor Walden, maybe, preaching on waiting on God. And remember, waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting is not inactivity. It includes prayer. Verse 25, the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Doesn't just mean sitting there reading a book or doing something to distract yourself till God's ready to act on your behalf. It includes prayer. And remember, it should be earnest prayer, brother, pouring out our souls to God. Think of Jesus' words to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane when he came to them and they were sleeping. What, could you not watch with me one hour? Watching means praying. Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Real prayer, brethren, believing prayer requires exertion. There are many times, at least in my life, that the reason I don't pray is not because I don't think I need to pray, not because I don't want to pray, but because praying is hard work. There, I'm confessing it. I'm lazy. So when I say wait, I don't mean doing nothing. Prayers work, as I said. It's Jesus' prayers in Gethsemane. His own prayers are described as with strong crying and tears. And from Luke's gospel, we know it was with sweat and bloody sweat. And the Lord says in Isaiah 64, seven, to the people of Israel. There's no one who stirs himself up to lay hold of God. It's work. And Paul says in Romans 15, 30, when he's telling the people in the church in Rome to pray along with him, he says, strive together with me in prayer to God. So waiting is not doing nothing. It includes prayer. It requires focusing the mind. Waiting on God means you fix your mind on things that are above, Colossians 3.1. As Peter says in 1 Peter 1.13, you gird up the loins of your mind. Mental work requires as much energy as physical work, many times more. It requires also patience waiting upon God. Look at verses 41 through 44 of Lamentations 3. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled. You have not pardoned. You ever have that problem? Or here's somebody who has that problem. Well, I've been confessing my sins, but I don't feel the sense of forgiveness. So that's what Jeremiah's talking about. We have transgressed and rebelled. You have not pardoned. So what do you do then? Keep going to God. Keep pouring out your soul to him. Verse 43, you have covered yourself with anger and pursued us. You have slain and not pitied. Like I said before, he's not blaming God. God could answer that, Like this, maybe. Yeah. In other words, you don't deserve this kind of treatment sometimes. You have covered yourself with a cloud that prayer should not pass through. Sometimes that's how God deals with people. It's not that he's not there. Not that he's not listening, but you know what he's doing? He's teaching. Teaching you to keep coming. Teaching you to keep laying hold of him. Teaching you to keep crying out to him. It means humbling yourself, mortifying pride. This is what we're all involved in waiting. Bearing your burden. Verse 26, it is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silent because God has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust. There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him. and be full of reproach, for the Lord will not cast off forever. He won't. Oh, but it's been so long. It has. And brethren, it means, again, mortifying discontentment and sinful complaining. Look at verse 39. Why should a living man complain And this time, it is that word for murmur. That's what the margin in my Bible says. Why should a living man complain or murmur a man for the punishment of his sins? That's different from righteously laying out your complaint before God and pouring it out to him. Brethren, we are sinners. With all your pouring out, of your soul to God, should you ever say anything like, I don't deserve this. That's right, I think not. And then waiting also involves obedience. I remember one time reading something in a sermon of John Owen about waiting upon God and how difficult it can be to have to wait and wait and wait until you sense again the smile of God. When you've known it in the past and you're going through a time of difficulty and you think, well, God is not happy with me, he's not smiling upon me, et cetera, et cetera. But are you his child? Keep waiting, keep hanging in there. But his point was, where are you gonna find God? Your temptation is to think, you know, I've had happier days. I've been trying to serve God, but it's tough. It's especially tough now. I'm gonna slack off a little bit and wander off the path you should be on. Owen's point was very simple and so helpful to me. What path are you gonna find God on? The path of walking in his ways. So as you wait, walk in His path and expect to meet Him in that path. And that leads to my final point, my final recommendation, suggestion, exhortation for laying hold of God and praying in times of distress is repent and obey. Repent and obey. Look at verse 40. Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord. Verse 42, we have transgressed and rebelled. Now, I am not saying that whenever you suffer in a painful way that you are guilty of some terrible sin for which God is visiting upon you a terrible judgment. The Jews of Jesus' day reasoned that way. Luke 13. Lord, what do you think about those people whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices? Some of those Jews from Galilee. They had an unusual judgment come upon them. And what do you think about that, Jesus? Trying to get him to say something negative about the Galileans. He was one of them. Jesus said, unless you repent, you're likewise going to perish. The way you think they've perished under the judgment of God, you're going to perish. You're wrong, he's saying. Even the, they said, his own, was it his own disciples who said to him, who sinned? This man or his parents said he was born blind. as if bad things don't happen unless you're guilty of some terrible sin. No, that's not what I'm saying. That's not what Jeremiah is saying. It's not what the Bible teaches. Hebrews 12 says every legitimate son of God, his own people, every single one of them suffers chastisement. The whole book of Job tells you the same thing, doesn't it? Who is announced in chapter one at the beginning as the godliest man on the face of the earth at his time? That would be Job. And who suffers more than anyone else on the face of the earth? That would be Job. Now, Job did have some sin, right? God taught him through his affliction so that at the end he said, I repent. in dust and ashes. We all have things that we can repent of, brethren. God is always speaking to us about our sins, isn't he? Or think of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, pleading three times in a row that God would deliver him from that thorn in the flesh. I mean, think of all the ministry I could engage in more readily, less distracted, without this obstacle. The Lord says, Paul, you're a good man. I want you to be more useful. I want you to be a better man. It's there to keep you from pride. Oh, so maybe it'll be a long-term affliction for Paul, for his good. And we have to confess our sins, brethren. We need to repent, and we need to do the will of God. Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord. If you're an unbeliever here today, I just want to read a couple of passages of scripture to you. Because all these promises about God answering prayers and the things I'm saying about how you can deal with God and cry out to God and expect God to answer you and bless you, they're not true for unbelievers if you don't know God through Jesus Christ. One of my favorite passages, though, for unbelievers, starting in Psalm 107 and verse 10. It says, those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and irons because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. That's describing an unbeliever, rebels, despisers of God's counsel, of his word, of himself. Then it says, this is what God does. Therefore he brought down their heart with labor. They fell down and there was none to help. He afflicted you maybe because you're such a rebel against him, not treating you as a son that he loves to make you better and to make you a more polished diamond who shines as gold through your affliction. But then it says in verse 13, and this is what I urge you to do, if you're an unbeliever and you have suffering in your life and you wonder why, this is why. Because you're running away from God or you're blaspheming God or you're disobeying Him in a high-handed manner. This is how God treats people oftentimes. It's a blessing if he brings you to that kind of a point because it says in verse 13, then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and broke their chains in pieces. He can break the chains of sin that hold you to whatever it is. I hope God, if he hasn't already brought you to the place of saying, I should leave these sins and to the place of realizing I can't leave these sins. I'm enslaved to them. If He hasn't brought you there, I hope He does. If He has, I hope you will listen and do what the Word of God says and cry out to Him in your trouble that He might break the chains in pieces. And the psalmist then says, Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men, for He has broken the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron in two. Paul wrote in Romans 2 verse 4, do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? The Bible is saying that both the blessings you have in your life should lead you to look to God who gave them to you and thank Him for them, but the painful things in your life that you experience. should also make you look to God and realize, God is the one who is displeased with me. I need to repent of my sins, confess them to God, and ask that He would forgive them through His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for the forgiveness of sins. Go to Him today. The Bible tells us that Christ stands ready to receive you. He stands ready to save you if you will but call out to Him. in your distress. Come to Him today that you might know the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word and ask that You would speak to us through Your Word today by the work of Your Holy Spirit, that You would write these things on our hearts. We ask that You would bring unbelievers to the end of themselves and to the foot of the cross, that they would humbly and desperately cry out to you that you might save them through the blood of your son. And we ask it all in his name, amen.